Empowered Patient Podcast Patient Advocates Call for Greater Awareness and Investment in Fighting C.diff and Other Infectious Diseases with Christian Lillis Peggy Lillis Foundation
Christian Lillis, Co-Founder and CEO of the Peggy Lillis Foundation is a patient advocate in the fight against C. diff infection. Clostridium difficile is an opportunistic infection of the gut that often occurs after taking antibiotics and can lead to life-threatening complications. Christian shares his personal story of losing his mother to C. diff and highlights the progress made in raising awareness and the development of new treatments for the infection. The Peggy Lillis Foundation emphasizes the importance of patient voices in shaping infectious disease policies and research and the need for community support to fight C. diff and other preventable infectious diseases.
Christian explains, "Last time we did our most recent C. diff awareness month campaign in November, it was our most successful one yet. We reached around 23 million people through a mix of earned, print, video, and podcast media and a strong social media campaign. We also had it bolstered by media partnerships with Contagion Live and Pharmacy Times. As part of our programming for the month, we held a virtual town hall, and about 200 people attended. More than half of them were C. diff patients, survivors, and family members."
"Other progress was at the end of 2022, and then in early 2023, two new therapies. Technically, they are classified as preventative by the FDA, but they are basically microbiome restoration therapies. As I said earlier, when you take antibiotics, there can be other causes. Still, when your gut microbiome, gut bacteria, and viruses get out of whack or depleted, you become very vulnerable to C. diff. And a reason why people struggle to get over C. diff is because their gut microbiome remains degraded. So these new two therapies, one is done by enema, one is given by capsule over several days, it's a really huge change for people who are battling recurrent C. diff."
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